AT LEVELS E – J Grade 1 A CHILD’S READING LEVEL IS DETERMINED BY: • Is the child reading with acceptable accuracy? No more than 10 errors/100 words. • Starting at Level I the child is timed. At least 40 Words Per Minute Meets the Benchmark for Level I, and 45 WPM for Level J. • Is the child using a variety of strategies (pictures, letter sounds, word chunks, skip it read on go back, asking: Does it look right? Sound right? Make sense?) to figure out unknown words? • Does the child recognize errors as he/she reads and fixes them? • Does the child read in longer phrases? • Before the child reads, the child does a “picture walk.” Is he/she orally connecting with at least 3-4 key events without prompting? • After reading, and with the book closed, the child does a retelling. Is he/she referring to the characters by name and including all of the important details from the beginning, middle, end in sequence? • Does the child use the important language and vocabulary from the text in the retelling? • Can the child retell the story on his/her own without prompts or questions? • Can the child tell a favorite part and why? We are looking for a response that requires higher level thinking, for example inferring the author’s message in the story, or stating an action that happened in the text with a personal connection. • Can the child make a connection with this text ~ does it remind the child of another text, a movie or TV show, or something in his/her own life? We are looking for connections that show a deeper understanding of the story. For example, on a fiction story about reusing objects, a connection could be about the importance of recycling. • If it is nonfiction, can the child quickly locate and use the nonfiction text features to answer questions? (timelines, maps, table of contents, glossary, captions, charts, etc.)
What Does An ADVANCED 1st Grader Look Like While Applying Strategies? Making Connections/Prior KnowledgeUses background knowledge to enhance comprehension and interpretation. Makes text-to-text and text-to-self connections; uses knowledge of familiar authors to make predictions (For ex. Curious George books often end the same way.) QuestioningAsks questions to enhance meaning; can easily answer questions; beginning awareness of different types of questions~ literal (answers are IN the text) and inferential (answers come from life experience) Visualizing/Sensory ImageryDescribes own sensory images; images can be elaborated from the literal text or existing picture; demonstrated using any modality or media Determining ImportanceIdentifies words, characters, and/or events as more important to overall meaning; makes some attempt to explain reasoning Monitoring ComprehensionIdentifies location and type of difficulty he/she had while reading and articulates the need to solve the problem InferringDraws conclusions and makes predictions using examples from the text RetellingRetells elements of the text in logical sequence; may include some extension to overall theme, message, background knowledge, refers to characters by specific name and uses vocabulary from text http://www.mrsjudyaraujo.com/expectations-by-grade-level/ and adapted to fit the AW 2018 assessment matrix.